Artist: London based ceramic artist, Abigail Schama, came to pottery from painting. Abigail Schama’s hand thrown, stoneware bowls tell stories through surface. Any bowl is basic and universal in its meaning. The process of building up and then turning the form creates their skin and character. Abigail relies on the processes of slipping and chattering; words which describe human contact.
Abigail plays with a palette of dolomite and transparent glazes. Each piece undergoes a further firing to be lightly gilded with (24 carat) gold lustre, which highlight the shape of each form and create an intriguing contrast with the more humble tones and textures of her work.
Description: A tsubo-shaped moon. In ancient Roman myth, Luna is the divine embodiment of the moon. Often presented as the female complement of the male Sun, her symbol is the crescent moon, so it follows that this less full moon is named after her. Luna’s black and red clay body supports the myriad blues and browns washed over with porcelain – stretching, reaching, leaching – visible matt brushstrokes enhance her lunar surface.
These vessels were made with vigour, ruthlessness, care, and time. In them quiet sits alongside noise. Rims and shoulders reach out from openings, inviting exploration where other colours and currents underpin the surface. Touch them and your hands will tell you that they are like the hide of a bbeast. Robust, both rough and smooth and stretched to its limit the skins just about fit the body. Both seal and shield, the skin is inextricably bound to the character of the whole and it is evidence of multiple layers and processes. Together, the rhythm of these six pieces rises and falls as waves do. These are vessels which can hold and bump up against each other. A puff blows out of the mouth of one to inflate the next. Each swells and breaks to different degrees, with varying iterations of form and colour. A glacial current moves between them. Tectonics shifting like generations passing – a family orbiting in self generating rings.
Material: Stoneware
Method: Hand thrown
Dimensions: H42cm x ⌀32cm
Origin: Made in the UK
Care: Water tight, dust lightly to clean
